Sovereignty of God

Heavenly Rest

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. – Revelation 14:13

Rest, rest, rest—this is what you want. And to me this idea of heaven is exceedingly beautiful…You have said if you could get it, you would lie down and rest; you have toiled after a certain amount of riches, you have said if you could once gain a competence, you would then make yourself at ease. Or, you have been laboring long to gain a certain point of character, and then you have said you would lay down your arms and rest. Ay, but you have not reached it yet; and you love heaven because heaven is the goal to the racer, the target of the arrow of existence; you love heaven because it will be the couch of time, yes, an eternal rest for the poor weary struggler upon earth. You love it as a place of rest; and do we never enjoy a foretaste of heaven upon earth in that sense? O, yes, beloved! blessed be God, “we who have believed do enter into rest.” Our peace is like a river, and our righteousness like the waves of the sea. God may give to His people rest: even the rest that remaineth for the people of God. We have stormy trials and bitter troubles in the world; but we have learned to say, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul! for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.” Did you never, in times of great distress, climb up to your closet, and there on your knees pour out your heart before God? Did you never feel after you had so done that you had bathed yourself in rest, so that you cared not one whit for them? Though wars and tumults were raging around you, you were kept in perfect peace, for you had found a great protecting shield in Christ; you had looked upon the face of God’s Anointed. Ah, Christian, that rest without a billow of disturbance, that rest so placid and serene, which in your deepest troubles you have been enabled to enjoy in the bosom of Christ, is to you a bunch of the mighty vintage of heaven, one grape of the heavenly cluster which you shall soon partake of in the land of the hereafter. Here, again, you see we can have a foretaste of heaven and realize what it is even while here upon earth. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0989.cfm

Security in Christ

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. ~ Jude 1:24,25

Beloved, have you never sat down and reflected on the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints? I am sure you have, and God has brought home to you a sense of your security in the person of Christ. He has told you that your name is graven on His hand; He has whispered in your ear the promise, “Fear thou not, I am with thee.” You have been led to look upon Him, the great Surety of the covenant, as faithful and true, and, therefore, bound and engaged to present you, the weakest of the family, with all the chosen race, before the throne of God; and in such sweet contemplation I am sure you have been drinking some of the juice of His spiced pomegranates; you have had some of the choice fruits of Paradise; you have had some of the enjoyments which the perfect saints have above in a sense of your complete and eternal security in Christ Jesus. Oh, how I love that doctrine of the perseverance of the saints! I shall at once renounce the pulpit when I cannot preach it, for any other form of teaching seems to me to be a blank desert and a howling wilderness—as unworthy of God as it would be beneath even my acceptance, frail worm as I am. I could never either believe or preach a Gospel which saves me today and rejects me tomorrow—a Gospel which puts me in Christ’s family one hour, and makes me a child of the devil the next—a Gospel which justifies and then condemns me—a Gospel which pardons me, and afterward casts me down to hell. Such a Gospel is abhorrent to reason itself, much more it is contrary to the mind of God whom we delight to serve. Yes, beloved, we do enjoy a sense of perfect security even as we dwell in this land of wars and fightings. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0989.cfm

Security Even on Earth

Sherry Christian Life, salvation, Character of Jesus, Attributes of God, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ… – Ephesians 1:3

We have been greatly saddened as we have seen some high professors turning from their profession—ay, and worse still, some of the Lord’s own beloved committing grievous faults and slips, which have brought disgrace upon their character, and injury to their souls. Now I have learned to look to heaven lately as a place where we shall never, never sin—where our feet shall be fixed firmly upon a rock—where there is neither tripping nor sliding—where faults shall be unknown—where we shall have no need to keep watch against an indefatigable enemy, because there is no foe that shall annoy us—where we shall not be on our guard day and night watching against the incursion of foes, for there “the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.” I have looked upon it as the land of complete security, where the garment shall be always white, where the face shall be always anointed with fresh oil, where there is no fear of slipping or turning away, but where we shall stand fast for ever. And I ask you, if that is a true view of heaven—and I am sure it is one feature of it—do not the saints even on earth enjoy some fruits of Paradise, even in this sense? Do we not even in these huts and villages below sometimes taste the joys of blissful security? The doctrine of God’s Word is, that all who are in union with the Lamb are safe, that all believers must hold on to their way, that those who have committed their souls to the keeping of Christ shall find Him a faithful and immutable keeper. On such a doctrine we can enjoy security even on earth; not that high and glorious security which renders us free from every slip and trip, but nevertheless a security well nigh as great, because it secures us against ultimate ruin, and renders us certain that we shall attain to eternal felicity. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0989.cfm

“Lord, save them!”

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? – Romans 10:14

Last Tuesday night, there were a mother and father who had a son about whom they had once been very hopeful; but he had left home, and gone away for weeks, though he promised to return. He had gone off, and they had not heard a word about him. They came to a company of Christian people, last Tuesday night, broken-hearted. They had done their best to find their son, but they could not find him.

It was to Haddon Hall that they came, and the people of God there prayed for his father and mother. The father himself prayed, and broke down with emotion about his lost son. He went home, and there was a letter from his son to say that the Savior had found him. He had given up the drink, and he hoped to be a comfort to his father and mother all the rest of their days. He was many miles away, and knew nothing of his father’s prayer.

Often, when you do not get on with people, go and tell the Lord Jesus Christ about it; say, “Lord, I have preached to them, I have prayed for them, I have talked to them, I have wept over them, I bear them on my heart as a burden. Their very name seems to burn itself with letters of fire into my soul. Lord, save them! Lord, save them, and they will be saved!” That is the way to win souls. If God works, He first of all makes us travail in birth for the souls of others, and then are they born into the kingdom. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2327.cfm

Pray for the Power to Win Souls

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? – Romans 10:14

I wish that it were your habit to be always looking out for souls. Up then, you Christian men, and seek as God shall help you, by every means in your power, to make known Christ to the dying all around you! But you will not do it unless you are sent, driven, impelled, forced—you will not win souls for Christ until the Gospel is like a fire in your bones, and you feel that woe is unto you if you do not preach it.

Well now, before you go to try to do that, there is one thing more. You cannot do it effectively unless you are sent—and to be sent means to have power given you with which to do the work. Can that power be had? If you feel impelled to cry to God to give you the power to preach, the spiritual power, the power of the Holy Ghost, if you are propelled to teach in the Sunday school—and it is not worth doing unless you feel that you are impelled to it, and sent to it—then pray for the power to win the souls of those dear children for Christ. If you feel called upon to write a letter to a friend tomorrow about his soul or her soul, do it because you feel called upon to do it—but pray to God to show you how to do it. Pray to Him to put the power into the words that you utter, that you may say the right words, and put even the right tone into those words.

But the power being obtained, you must go forth and tell out the message that your Lord has given you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2327.cfm

Go as a God-Sent Man

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

And how shall they preach, except they be sent?  – Romans 10:15

A man who goes to tell others about Christ must feel that he is sent to do it, or he will never do it properly and effectively. The man who is sent, first of all, has a message given to him. You do not say to your servant, “You go north, south, east, west, and that is all.” No, if you send him, you give him a message: “Go and say to Mr. So-and-so, this and that;” or you write it down, and you say, “Deliver that letter to such a person.” You do not leave him to go and say whatever he likes: “John, I want you to call on Mr. So-and-so tomorrow morning, and to say whatever first comes into your head.” You do not act like that, do you? Yet that is the notion some people have, nowadays, of what a preacher is; he is a man who makes his message up as he goes along; he is a “thinker;” he excogitates the Gospel out of his own brains. I have heard of a German who is said to have constructed a camel out of his own consciousness. Very likely; but I am sure that nobody will construct the Gospel that way. He must receive it by the revelation of God. The other plan is not Paul’s notion, for he asks, “How shall they preach, except they be sent?” First, then, get your message, be determined to know nothing among men but what the Lord Himself has revealed to you in His Word, by the teaching of His Spirit. Get it well into you; say to yourself, “What I am going to speak is nothing of my own; else it would fall flat and powerless; but I am going with, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ This is God’s message.” Then, if you are sent, you will preach, and you will so preach that men will hear; and they will so hear that they will believe; and they will so believe that they will be saved. But you must go as a God-sent man, having received your message from the mouth of your Master. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2327.cfm

Make Christ Known

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

…and how shall they hear without a preacher? – Romans 10:14

How can they hear without a preacher? Now, let every one of you become, in the sense in which the text means it, a preacher, by telling out in some form or other, and making known in some way or other, the wondrous doctrine of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. Speak to an individual, if you can. If you cannot do that, write. If you cannot write, send a sermon, or give a tract. Only do keep on making Christ known….If every one of you Christians would every day make Christ known to somebody, what a missionary organization we should be!

It is pitiable that anybody should live and die without knowing the Gospel.

The more earnest a man is to win souls, the more he is shocked, amazed, and appalled by the necessity there is to keep on making known the Gospel of Christ…We, to whom the text alludes, who are the preachers of this Gospel of peace, say to you: “Sinner, throw down your weapons of rebellion. Guilty one, fight no longer against God; come, and be at peace with Him. His peace is proclaimed to you through Jesus Christ. He will freely forgive you every transgression and iniquity; He is ready to forget and blot it all out. God invites you to be reconciled to Him, to have done with warring against Him. We preach peace to you; and, if you hear us, we then tell you glad tidings of good things, full pardon for all the past, a change of heart to be given to you, to make you a new creature in Christ Jesus; help for the future to strive against sin; strength to conquer and tread the dragon beneath your feet, power to become a child of God, to become an heir of heaven, to be taken under the guardian wing of Providence, to be directed by the infinite wisdom of the Holy Spirit.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2327.cfm